It is the fate of induftry to be equally endangered by miscarriage and fuccefs, by confidence and defpondency. He that engages in a great undertaking, with a falle opinion of its facility, or too high conceptions of his own ftrength, is easily discouraged by the first hindrance of his advances, because he had promised himself an equal and per. petual progreffion without impediment or disturbance; when unexpected interruptions break in upon him, he is in the state of a man furprised by a tempeft, where he purposed only to bask in the calm, or sport in the fhallows.

It is not only common to find the difficulty of an enterprize greater, but the profit less, than hope had pictured it. Youth enters the world with very happy prejudices in her own favour. She imagines herself not only certain of accomplishing every adventure, but of obtaining thofe rewards which the accomplishment may deferve. She is not eafily perfuaded to believe that the force of merit can be refifted by obftinacy and avarice, or its luftre darkened by envy and malignity. She has not yet learned that the most evident claims to praise or preferment may be rejected by malice against conviction, or by indolence without examination; that they may be fometimes defeated by artifices, and fometimes overborne by clamour; that in the mingled numbers of mankind, many need no other provocation to enmity than that they find themselves excelled; that others have ceafed their curiofity, and confider every man who fills the mouth of report with a new name, as an intruder upon their retreat, and disturber of their repose; that fome are en

gaged

gaged in complications of intereft which they imagine endangered by every innovation; that many yield themselves up implicitly to every report which hatred diffeminates or folly scatters; and that whoever afpires to the notice of the publick, has in almost every man an enemy and a rival; and must struggle with the oppofition of the daring, and elude the ftratagems of the timorous, muft quicken the frigid and foften the obdurate, must reclaim perverfeness and inform ftupidity.

It is no wonder that when the prospect of reward has vanished, the zeal of enterprize fhould ceafe; for who would perfevere to cultivate the foil which he has, after long labour, discovered to be barren? He who hath pleased himself with anticipated praises, and expected that he fhould meet in every place with patronage or friendship, will foon remit his vigour, when he finds that from thofe who defire to be confidered as his admirers nothing can be hoped but cold civility, and that many refuse to own his excellence, left they should be too juftly expected to reward it.

A man, thus cut off from the prospect of that port to which his addrefs and fortitude had been employed to fteer him, often abandons himself to chance and to the wind, and glides careless and idle down the current of life, without refolution to make another effort, till he is swallowed up by the gulph of mortality.

Others are betrayed to the fame desertion of themfelves by a contrary fallacy. It was faid of Hannibal that he wanted nothing to the completion of his

martial

martial virtues, but that when he had gained a victory he should know how to use it. The folly of defisting too foon from fuccessful labours, and the hafte of enjoying advantages before they are fecured, is often fatal to men of impetuous defire, to men whose conscioufnefs of uncommon powers fills them with prefumption, and who having borne oppofition down before them, and left emulation panting be. hind, are early perfuaded to imagine that they have reached the heights of perfection, and that now, being no longer in danger from competitors, they may pass the rest of their days in the enjoyment of their acquifitions, in contemplation of their own fuperiority, and in attention to their own praises, and look unconcerned from their eminence upon the toils and contentions of meaner beings.

It is not fufficiently confidered in the hour of exultation, that all human excellence is comparative; that no man performs much but in proportion to what others accomplish, or to the time and opportunities which have been allowed him; and that he who stops at any point of excellence is every day finking in estimation, becaufe his improvement grows continually more incommensurate to his life. Yet, as no man willingly quits opinions favourable to himself, they who have once been juftly celebrated, imagine that they ftill have the fame pretenfions to regard, and feldom perceive the diminution of their character while there is time to recover it. Nothing then remains but murmurs and remorse; ; for if the spendthrift's poverty be embittered by the reflection that he once was rich, how muft the idler's

obfcurity

obfcurity be clouded by remembering that he once had luftre!

These errors all arise from an original mistake of the true motives of action. He that never extends his view beyond the praises or rewards of men, will be dejected by neglect and envy, or infatuated by honours and applaufe, But the confideration that life is only depofited in his hands to be employed in obedience to a mafter who will regard his endeavours, not his fuccefs, would have preferved him from trivial elations and, difcouragements, and enabled him to proceed with conftancy and cheerfulness, neither enervated by commendation, nor intimidated by cenfure.

NUMB. 128. SATURDAY, June 8, 1751.

THE writers who have undertaken the talk of reconciling mankind to their prefent ftate, and relieving the difcontent produced by the various diftribution of terreftrial advantages, frequently remind us that we judge too haftily of good and evil, that we view only the fuperficies of life, and determine of the whole by a very fmall part; and that in the condition of men it frequently happens, that grief and anxiety lie hid under the golden robes of profperity, and the gloom of calamity is cheered by fecret radiations of hope and comfort; as in the works of nature the bog is fometimes covered with flowers, and the mine concealed in the barren crags.

None but thofe who have learned the art of fubjecting their fenfes as well as reafon to hypothetical fyftems, can be perfuaded by the moft fpecious rhe

torician